New York Governor David Paterson announced that he is submitting DNA legislation that will require everyone convicted of a penal law crime to provide a sample. Currently, New York state only requires DNA collection after a judge convicts a suspect of any felony crime or 18 specified misdemeanors. Once the sample is collected, the information […]
Actual Innocence
Zeigler, Part IX
Zeigler, Part IX: Let’s talk blood. Pictured here on the website you see the t-shirt Tommy wore underneath a red dress shirt, the night he was shot and, was supposed to die. On the front of the t-shirt you see a big blood stain underneath the left armpit, right? And on the back of the […]
A Chinese Wrongful Conviction
Reuters reports about a Chinese case where a man who was supposedly hacked to death in a fight has reappeared in his hometown after 10 years, raising questions about police torture to extract a confession from the alleged killer. Zhao Zuohai, the supposed killer, was acquitted of the crime and released by a Henan court May 8, […]
Alaska Enacts DNA Access Law
Alaska is the 48th U.S. state to enact a law granting post-conviction DNA access to prisoners seeking to overturn wrongful convictions. After passing the state’s House and Senate with unanimous support, the measure was signed into law by Gov. Sean Parnell on May 14, 2010. Only Massachusetts and Oklahoma now lack DNA access laws in […]
Zeigler, Part VIII
To completely understand the dynamics in the Zeigler case, I think we should make it more visual, to clarify what we are talking about. If you look into the right margin you will see that under “Last Modified Post” some of the older Zeigler posts show up again. I have added photographs for clarity. These […]
Lapointe hearing May 7, 2010
The defense lawyers trying to clear Richard Lapointe of the horrendous 1987 murder of Mrs. Bernice Martin began an attack in court last Friday on a detective who they said secured the mentally disabled man’s questionable confession after a series of suggestive and, at times, threatening interrogations. Much of the testimony Friday focused on a […]
Lapointe hearing May 6, 2010
Karen Lapointe-Martin stands by her ex-husband. She was called to testify yesterday. “Do you recall the day your grandmother died?” Casteleiro asked. “Yes, I do, it was a Sunday,” she responded. She recounted her family’s Sunday routine — go to church, visit with her 88-year-old grandmother, Bernice Martin, then go home for Sunday dinner. That […]
Lapointe hearing May 5, 2010
The hearing before Judge John J. Nazzaro is focusing on evidence that Lapointe’s lawyers argue was previously overlooked, including the length of time that Martin’s apartment was burning until the first firefighter came through the front door, a pair of gloves found at the crime scene that contained the DNA of someone other than Richard, […]
Lapointe hearing May 4, 2010
Richard Lapointe could not have killed Bernice Martin. “None of the confessions fit the crime,” Andy Lefebvre, a retired Bloomfield police officer, told Rick Green. He has been following the case and doing his own detective work for years, after his parish priest asked him to look into it. “He should have been examined prior to […]
Lapointe hearing May 3, 2010
Superior Court Judge John J. Nazzaro began hearing evidence on Monday. The first witness was Michael Ludlow, a retired Manchester police detective who led the investigation into the killing of Bernice Martin. Martin, the grandmother of Lapointe’s wife, was raped and strangled in her apartment on North Main Street in Manchester the evening of March […]